Category: Meditation

The Science of Gratitude

I have a family member who seems to focus on all the negatives in her life. If she doesn’t have a “big fat problem” to deal with, there doesn’t seem to be anything to focus on, no life purpose. While we occasionally hear her voice words of gratitude, they’re few and far between, and they usually have to do with people being useful to her, rather than “no good to me.”

It’s exhausting emotionally, spiritually and physically, so our time spent with her is limited. She doesn’t see herself as a negative person, but that’s how the rest of the family defines her. Void of a lot of gratitude.

 

What’s behind being grateful?

Just why do some people seem more naturally grateful than others? Can it be learned through practice? Is there a genetic component to it? What are the best ways to encourage, practice, and develop it? Is it an emotion? Virtue? Behavior?

These are some of the many questions we’ll be exploring together on Meditation Mondays as we approach Thanksgiving here in the United States. We’ll be preparing our hearts for that day, and carrying thankfulness into 2019 with us. And, hopefully, throughout the remainder of our lives.

So let’s get started today with some basics.

 

Gratitude as a research topic—

Scientists are studying gratefulness, and they’re learning some fascinating things about it. But before they started gratefulness research—a relatively new area in psychology and neuroscience—they had to develop some working definitions. Robert Emmons—considered by some as the world’s leading scientific expert on gratitude—and Michael McCullough whittled gratitude down to 2 definitions, so it could be scientifically studied and quantified. Those definitions are:

  1. “Recognizing one has obtained a positive outcome (from something), and;
  2. Recognizing that there is an external source for the positive outcome.”

They understand that people can possess gratitude for something outside of themselves, something, or someone, like God, fate, nature, etc., as the benefactors.

Some scientists then go on to break gratitude down into 3 categories:

  1. An “affective trait”—are you innately more prone to be grateful as part of your personality?
  2. A mood—Does your overall gratitude level alter throughout the day?
  3. An emotion—Where you experience a temporary spike in gratitude as a result of something positive or beneficial being given to you.

 

Gratitude and brain science—

Scientists have uncovered areas our brains that express or experience gratitude. And some studies claim to have located possible gratitude genes.

Are there biological roots of gratitude? Why do some people seem naturally inclined to experience and express it? Are their ways you can foster “feelings and expressions of gratitude?”

Some researchers look at gratitude on an evolution spectrum: gratitude and helping one another out strengthens community bonds.

 

“Feeling” gratitude—

I think most people would say they “feel happy” when they experience gratitude, as though happiness and gratitude go hand-in-glove with one another. But evidently we experience gratitude in different ways and depending upon what kind of personality we have, what our cognitive function or awareness is, and what gender we are. Yes, females and males differ on the gratitude spectrum!

Other ingredients need to be considered too. Like:

  • Where were you born and where did you grow up; and who were your parents?
  • Social and cultural mores you grew up or live in.
  • The religion you learned or follow.
  • The kind of parenting styles you exposed to.­­

 

B­enefits—

Scientists have uncovered a multitude of benefits for the grateful.

  1. Grateful people demonstrate greater happiness and life satisfaction.
  2. Grateful people experience less materialism.
  3. Grateful people enjoy both physical and psychological benefits.
  4. Grateful people exhibit a greater resiliency to traumatic events.
  5. Gratefulness may promote the development of other traits we consider virtues, like: patience, humility and wisdom. (Although I would argue that no matter how grateful you are, you cannot enjoy real wisdom without first acknowledging God. More on that in a later post.)

 

And gratitude appears to inspire people to generosity, kindness and helpfulness. It shores up relationships and may improve work environments by promoting positive attitudes and behavior.

 

In the following weeks, we’ll dig deeper into all of these and discover how to be grateful people, or more grateful than we already are. To pass it on and encourage and promote the behavior in others.

 

Until then, I’d encourage you to watch the following 4-minute YouTube video in which University of California—Davis professor, Robert Emmons, reveals 4 encouraging benefits in his presentation: “What Good is Gratitude?”

 

 

For more information on gratitude, go to the University of California—Berkeley’s: Greater Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life. They have a wonderful online magazine called Great Good Magazine: Science-Based Insights for a Meaningful Life.

 

Blessings,

Andrea

May you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers (3 John 2).

My Camino wasn’t going to be rising before dawn and rushing through the popular 15-18-mile “stage” in order to make sure I secured a bed at the next town’s cheapest Albergue (like so many of the pilgrims on the path).

My Camino was going to be slowing down, engaging with the history, geography and spirituality. Stopping often to absorb the surroundings, architecture, history and people. Sitting in churches long enough to breathe in the Spirit of God. Trusting that God would provide a place for me to lay my head each night. Teaching myself how to live and walk in a relaxed manner.

 

Preparing for your day—

When you’re preparing to leave one place you know you won’t be returning to and walking 5 – 15 miles to another location, you plan carefully. You spend some time thinking about what you’re going to wear, how you’re going to pack, in case the weather changes and you need to shed a jacket or get to your rain gear and poncho in a hurry. If you happen to leave something back at the place you slept, you think long and hard about whether you really need it. About whether or not you can buy a replacement in the next tiny village you sleep in.

You get into a rhythm, and you realize quickly just what you need to have and what you can live without. Hopefully you’ve done some serious thinking about this before you’ve arrived to start the walk. Unless you’ve decided to splurge and have a carrier service cart your bag from sleeping town to sleeping town, carrying an extra 2 or three pounds of unnecessary gear in your backpack can be physically and mentally debilitating.

At first it’s a little frustrating and disarming: Where do I keep my pilgrim credentials so I can access them easily to give to the person checking me in at the albergue? Where’s the best place in my backpack to keep my reading glasses so I can access them in a hurry? My sunglasses if the clouds should part? My first aid kit? (Just in case your or another pilgrim needs some care.) A special place for the precious handmade journal my son gave me and insisted I take along. The one I’d weep buckets of tears over if it got wet or lost.

It takes your brain some time to process, the fact that you have to think carefully about these particulars, since you’re more accustomed to being able to jump in the car to rush back where you left something, make an additional trip to the store to buy what you forgot. But the brain is an amazing body part. It eventually learns to accommodate and think in different patterns and meet new demands.

 

You develop a daily rhythm:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Although this run-down may read like a tedious list, stay with me. I’ll talk about the benefits afterward.

  • Wake up and rise slowly, stretch the body to prepare it for the day’s walk.
  • Do your bathroom thing. Since the pottying and washing rooms might be separate, you need to prepare for carting your tooth supplies to a different location for preparation, and your clothes for dressing. Putting in contact lenses might require yet another locale (depending upon sink and mirror availability.)
  • Roll up and shrink your sleeping bag (if you had to use one) and then spread all of your bags of clothing and necessities out on your bed, to make sure everything is accounted for.
  • If you haven’t done so the night before, head to the clothesline to gather your clothes and give them a once-over to see if socks, shirts, undies and pants are dry enough to wear or roll up in a baggy. If not, the item will be rolled into a special bag (so as not to dampen other items) or clipped onto your backpack to dry as you walk.
  • Kinesiotape any body parts that need taping.
  • Double check the weather and temperature outside and decide on the day’s start-off clothing.
  • Get your hiking shirt(s) and pants on.
  • Prepare your feet and toes for the day, carefully put on your socks and then your shoes. (Although you may have to wait until you’re fully dressed and backpacked and headed to the front of the albergue if you’re shoes are stored in a downstairs cubby to keep the floors clean.)
  • Carefully pack up your backpack—sleeping bag in the very bottom, followed by bath towel and washcloth, silk sleeping bag liner, shower sandals, Ziploc bags of clothes and undies. The tiny pouches of daily contact lenses, foot care tape and pedicure supplies and the one containing general toiletries get tucked into available areas.
  • Then the journal and pilgrim credential (stored in waterproof bags) are slipped into the backpack and covered by the rain poncho and compressed puff jacket.
  • The upper pouch gets the Goretex rain jacket and pants (if the jacket isn’t being worn that day for general warmth), along with the assorted eyeglass containers (long distance sunglasses, travel-sized readers, and general long distance (for those times I’m taking a contact lens break). The sports sunglasses—in their case—get attached to the outside of my backpack’s hip pocket pouch for easy access. If I’m not wearing my sunhat that day, it gets folded up and stored in the top pouch too, for easy access. The money pouch, with the United States passport in its waterproof container, goes on top. Just in case we stop for a café con leche, banana or hunk of cheese along the way.
  • The outside pouch stores the Duck Back cover for my backpack (which I actually don’t need any longer since I purchased a full over-the-backpack-and-me poncho in St. Jean Pied de Pont just before setting out). It also carries my collapsible parachute bag I used for necessities like my United States of America passport and money pouch. The compact first aid get goes there, too, as well as any oranges, cheese or bananas I can squeeze into available space.
  • The two hip pouches contain lip cream, Euro coinage, the rosary Cory bought me in Rome, the prayer beads my dear girlfriend Judy bought me for my journey, and my hearing aids, which would cost me a small fortune to replace.
  • Before grabbing my coveted Pacer Poles hiking sticks, I double and triple-check for several items:
  • Hearing aids in the container (if they’re not in my ears, which Chris always checked for me too).
  • My phone, which I have only to take pictures, and in case of an emergency, should Chris and I become separated and I need to make contact with someone.
  • My precious leather journal and pilgrim credentials, to prove I’m on a foot-born pilgrimage and which gives me the right to bed down in an albergue.
  • Contact lenses
  • My money pouch and official passport, (which Chris always eyeballs too).
  • My Kinesiotape, (with which I could not walk comfortable if I were to lose).
  • Finally, the critical water bottles are topped off and placed in our backpack pockets.
  • Then the wrist sweatbands go on, followed by the Kool Tie neck wrap tied around my neck to ward off overheating and migraines, the hiking poles are grabbed, and you head out the door for another adventure, which you’ve come to realize you’re going to have. Every day.
  • The only jewelry I wore was a $15.00 faux pearl and diamond ring, so I didn’t have to worry about losing my real wedding ring or futzing with earrings. No watch, either. I relied on my phone, or the sunlight, for the time. And I didn’t bring any makeup. The only thing I applied to my face was sunscreen.

 

Not much to worry about.

 

Preparation time—

Because Chris and I were unhurried, this procedure took us about an hour. On days we wanted to rise early to beat the heat or walk longer distances, we managed to whittle it down to 45 minutes. Because most albergues expect you to vacate by 8:00 AM—to prepare for the next gaggle of pilgrims flooding their dormers—you’d likely have to rise earlier than you might have preferred. Especially if you’re sharing a room with pilgrims on a sprint to their next bed, who awaken you with noisy departure preparations or abrupt, dream-shattering light so they can be off.

 

Typed out on a word document, the process looks boring and tedious. Too methodical and repetitious. But it quickly became a comfortable ritual, one that gave consistency to our lives and only mildly jostled the brain. Each possession had a purpose and its place. Nothing useless or unnecessary. Everything we carried was meant to meet the basics of our daily needs. There was nothing but the necessaries to weigh us down. And most of it, besides the eyeglasses to see, the hearing aids to hear, the United States passport to move around Europe and get home, and the water was not critical.

 

Joy, and possibilities, in tedious structure—

The mundaneness had its advantages.

Since my brain had very little to be concerned about every morning, and became accustomed to the repetitive program, it was left with plenty of room to engage in the geography, the new surroundings, sights, smells, tastes and varied languages. New people and interesting conversations. All enjoyed without distractions or waste. Just as I was doing physically, my brain was relishing being able to take a breath.

I started enjoying the simplicity of carrying lightly and started pondering what I carried through life back home—what I’d picked up and carted along in my life “just in case”—that could be discarded.

There were plenty of buying opportunities, (and I had a wad of Euros in my pouch), but with so little room available, and the burden of extra weight to consider, I pondered each purchase with care and conscientious analysis. Something else I knew I needed to do more of in life.

 

Seriously consider the weight and substance of everything I own, everything I do, everything I buy.

 

It wasn’t that I was embracing a minimalistic attitude or view of life. If anything I probably found greater emotional joy than I had before in thinking about the beautiful and varied things that enrich my life and bring me happiness and satisfaction. The family heirlooms and pictures that trigger happy memories and the release of feel-good brain chemicals.

 

But I started asking myself some questions. Questions you may also want to ask yourself:

 

Introspection—

  1. What things do I too hastily pick up and burden my heart, mind and life with? Do I carefully count the cost of carrying them before picking them up?
  2. What belongings do I have that add nothing to my life, or, worse yet, only make it more complicated and burdensome?
  3. What should and would I divest myself of in order to enjoy a richer, fuller life?
  4. What should I divest myself of in order to invest in deeper, fuller relationships with family, friends and strangers?

 

It didn’t take long for me to start pondering those questions and soaking myself in the simple, divested life of a pilgrim. After all, I had traveled all that distance to hear what God had to teach me through the experience.

And I was determined to listen.

I’ll tell you more about that NEXT WEEK!

Until then, take some time to count the cost of your belongings and attachments?

Blessings,

Andrea

May you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers (3 John 2).

Photos by Andrea A Owan

Cultivating Gratefulness

Gratefulness is big business these days. Foundations have been formed to study and teach it. Brain potential single-day educational programs on gratefulness are making their way around the country. Oprah is focusing on it this month in her O, The Oprah Magazine. You can find presentations about it on TED talks. There’s even a website dedicated to nourishing and deepening your gratefulness.

The fact that we even have to teach people how to be grateful and how to exhibit gratefulness tells me something: gratefulness doesn’t come naturally to us. We have to think about it and work on it. Our hearts and minds really aren’t prone to it.

 

The problem?

So what’s the problem, aside from human beings generally being bent toward selfishness, self-preservation and self-promotion?

Are we too distracted by noise and sensory input from disquieting sources to appreciate the good things in our life?

Do we overlook the good things because we’ve become jaded to them and pay too much attention to the advertising that tells us what we have isn’t good enough and we need to keep striving for more, thus making anything we do have seem boring and unsatisfying?

Do we violate the 10thCommandment of “Thou shall not covet” too much and become depressed at what we consider to be a lack?

Do we buy too many things that we think will give us fulfillment and everlasting enjoyment and discover too quickly that they do neither, so we continue our search for more?

Do we really know what would prompt us to satisfaction and gratefulness?

And once we focus on gratefulness, how do we keep it a habit?

 

Taking a closer look at gratefulness—

In the next six Mondays leading up to Thanksgiving Day that we celebrate here in the United States, we’ll focus on gratefulness. What drives it, why we seem to suffer a lack of it, and why we need it. We’ll look at scientific research on it and see what God and some of His most remarkable people—like King David—have to say about it, or how they display it.

And, hopefully, at the end of the six weeks, you’ll come away with a heart set more on a permanent attitude of gratefulness. An attitude that will evolve and blossom into a lifestyle!

Until then, be thinking about the things or people in your life you are truly grateful for and why. Better yet, get a journal and turn it into a thankfulness notebook. I think you’ll be surprised at the affect writing them down has on your heart and spirit.

 

See you next week!

Blessings,

Andrea

May you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers (3 John 2).

Photo by Gabrielle Cole on unsplash.com

Enjoying the Benefits of Not Reading

FOR MY Free-for-All Friday posts, I often refer to and recommend a book I’ve been reading, one I think you’d enjoy or that could grow or enlarge your faith. But I haven’t read much the last month, which, for an author who’s a voracious reader, is really unordinary. I was enjoying the benefits that come from not having my eyes plastered to the words in a book or magazine or characters in a text or email.

Spending 25 days on a pilgrimage can do that to you. Change your focus.

But I don’t mean to imply that I didn’t read anything. I read—and tried to decipher—signs written in foreign languages. (I’m happy to say that, for the most part, I did pretty well with this!)

I also read special pilgrim maps, so we wouldn’t get lost or miss one of those special yellow and blue shell signs marking the route. (Our biggest obstacle to this was getting our brains used to the British-sourced maps that direct you to the top of the page for south, rather than the other way around. I never did get my brain adjusted. Thankfully, Chris did!)

And I read brief historical literature or pamphlets about the towns, villages, castles or churches we visited, and the people who made them famous.

And I read a few bus terminal signs and restaurant menus. And several texts from my kids. But not very many. And I wrote several brief ones in return. On Chris’s phone.

 

Satisfying a goal—

Part of our pilgrimage goal—mentally, physically and spiritually—was to deliberately divest ourselves of the daily anxieties of life. Like staying engaged in the endless world discourse, reading breaking news flashes, television-scrolling news briefs, texts and emails so we could “be in the know.” Instead, we wanted to be fully engaged in our moment-by-moment experiences. Undistracted from the here and now. Totally absorbed in where the map and our feet took us, in the conversations shared (and I do mean shared) at festival seating meal tables, in the geography of the land, and in the habits of its inhabitants.

 

Totally absorbed in what was happening to our bodies, minds and spirits.

 

I didn’t lug along a computer. My iPad rested peacefully in its pocket in my desk cabinet back home. I didn’t bring a magazine or book to kill time during down times. From the moment our plane lifted off the John F. Kennedy International Airport runway on its way to Paris and I returned home 26 days later, my phone was engaged in Airplane mode. (Actually, it took me two additional days after returning home to shut off the Airplane Mode toggle.) I had it along only to take pictures, and if a dire emergency warranted a call. It never did.

Frankly, I was surprised at how quickly and happily my brain and five senses responded to this new program.

They became fully engaged and magnified as they absorbed the sights, sounds and smells of pastoral settings brimming with sheep, cattle and horses, succulent green grasses, dank and mildewed medieval churches and monasteries, lazy rivers, spring-fed, dripping water fountains, the excited conversations of expectant pilgrims ready to start their journeys, the laughter of people enjoying al fresco dining and intimate conversations, the tick-tick-tick of un-capped hiking poles on cobbled streets.

And that was just on the first day!

My brain was so busy absorbing the sensory input I focused on that it didn’t have an opportunity to log one iota of regret at what it was missing out on.

 

And for the first time in a very long time my brain and I felt fully alive!

And so very grateful to be so.

In my last Free-for-All Friday post, I mentioned that I would be on a pilgrimage to discover a body and soul waltz. Now that my official pilgrimage is over for now, I can tell you my body and my soul quickly embraced the new tempo and melded together in perfect timing and rhythm, playing off of one another and gliding in synchrony.

It was a dance I didn’t want to end, and I’m making sure it won’t.

Next week Friday I’ll tell you how I’m accomplishing that. Maybe you’ll find some ideas and tips to accomplish the same things in your life.

I hope so.

But please join me this coming Monday when we’ll start preparing our hearts and minds for Thanksgiving!

Until then,

engage all of your senses in the moment. Be not only conscious but conscientious in every thought, word and life nuance.

Blessings,

Andrea

May you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers (3 John 2).
Photo by Ian on Unsplash.com

Are You Double-Minded With Too Many Worldviews?

Today we’re wrapping up our worldview discussion with a major question:

How many worldviews do you have?

 

Over the last several months we’ve looked at some major movers and shakers in world philosophy. And we’ve discussed the basic beliefs of some of the most influential worldviews.

During our discussion, what did you discover about your own personal worldview?

Do you have a melting (or boiling) pot of worldviews? Have you melded an assortment of them together, like a smorgasbord?

Maybe you lean toward Marxism, as so many seem to do now without even knowing they do. Do you view religion as an opium for an oppressed creature?

Do you take a rational view of the world? Maybe you’ve combined a little Naturalism—like Environmentalism and Earth-focus—with a dabble of Romanticism and Christian Theism. That combination might make you feel more in tune with the polytheists of the world.

Or would you relate to being a staunch Realist, or an Absurdist who thinks the world is one big pointless joke that ends in Nothing. Nihil.

 

The disciple, James, had some scathing words for those who couldn’t make up their minds.

 

“…the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind… Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.”

 

Like the wave of a sea, blown and tossed by the wind, double-minded and unstable.

 

I don’t know anyone who wants to be considered unstable, tossed around by a multitude of beliefs, unsure of their past, present or future. Unsure offer worried about, the foundation upon which they stand.

 

I think we would all be wise to know what we believe and why.

And strive to build our house upon the Rock!

 

What worldview have you built your house on?

 

As you read this post, I’m learning how to be a pilgrimage, doing a lot of meditating on how I do life, and probably how I can do it better. I expect to return enlightened and changed.

Because of this,MEDITATION MONDAYS will be on hiatus until October 15, when we’ll start our journey of preparing our hearts for Thanksgiving with a look at gratefulness.

 

Until then, be convinced about what you believe and why. Know the facts. People who have done a honest study of Christianity—even with the sole intent of proving it wrong—have come to the conclusion that its founder really is the Way, the Truth and the Life.

Knowing that and living like you believe it, will make your life’s path straight!

 

Looking forward to being back with you in a month!

Blessings,

Andrea

May you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers (3 John 2).